Shaving

I own a beard
I do not "have" a beard...
There is a fashion at this point in time, for young men to grow beards. These beards are a serious commitment to the young men who grow them. Beards are a sign of masculinity, to them, and must be cultivated, groomed, fashioned, and  sculpted. The presence of a Barber, or at least a Hairdresser, (note the capitals), is required to ensure that the necessary care is taken of the facial growth, in order to ensure the maximum effect of a fashion accessory which, by it's very nature, is designed to obscure your attractiveness to the opposite (or same, I don't give a stuff), sex.

I own my beard.
It is mine.
It has been my beard since 1983.
My wife and all my children have never seen me without my beard.

Note that I do not say "A beard", but "MY beard".
My beard has been short, long, scruffy, unkempt, tidy, tiny, and has gone from almost black to almost grey, but it has never been gone. It has remained, because it is part of who I am.

My beard is an integral part of my persona. I cannot imagine being without it.

Now here's the kicker. Something as precious to me as my beard must surely require my attention, right?
Wrong.

I brush my beard morning and night, when I brush my hair. I wash it when I wash the rest of me. Rarely does a hairdresser touch my beard. My Wife and kids give me a set of hair clippers for Father's Day every now and then, when my old ones give up. I maintain my beard myself.

Perhaps a lot of young men with beards treat theirs as I treat mine. That's great.
Many do not.

I have no right to judge, and I am just an aging guy with what I like to believe is a modicum of taste, but to the seriously beard-centric guys out there, I would like to offer a few words of insight:

A beard is a commitment. You grow a beard to see how it suits you. You keep a beard because it adds to who you are.
If the beard you grow requires you to change your hairstyle, fashion sense, lifestyle, or hair-care options, then it is probably wrong for you.
If the beard you grow causes people to respect you more, to compliment your looks, or to want to be seen with you, then you may have struck a winner.
I have been told that people cannot imagine me without a beard... That's good, because I can't either.

I regard that as fair indication that a beard is right for me.
My father only grew a beard once in his life, to the best of my knowledge. I was about 15 years old, and the centenary celebrations of his home town included a beard growing competition, which he duly entered. He did not win, but it was an impressive effort, and I could see how it would suit him.

He didn't keep the beard. My Mother didn't like it, for one thing, but the other, more important reason was that he did not feel it suited him. I understood his reasoning completely.
My Father was a clean-cut man, physically and in personality. He had nothing to hide, nothing that required any kind of screen, and so a beard didn't suit him. He wasn't completely comfortable with a beard.

This is not to say that people with beards are hiding something. My Father was over fifty when he first grew a beard. It just didn't suit the man he had become.

I own a beard. It is part of me. When you meet me, what you see is what you get. A good beard ADDS to your personality, emphasises who you are, and makes you more confident.
A bad beard hides your personality, detracts from who you are, and gives you something to hide behind. It can back-fire on you.
Be strong, not fashionable. Look at yourself and ask;"Do I really need a beard?"
If you think you do; try it, but be honest with yourself. There are so many men sporting great big lumberjack beards today, who will be scouring the internet in 25 years  time, trying to find the photographs that show them to be the pale-skinned, heavy-bearded fashionistas that they wish they never were.
I made my fashion mistakes, and I know they will haunt me, but at least I do not still wear those mistakes. When you grow a beard, it becomes part of you, and it remains part of you even after you shave it off.
I made mistakes with my beard. I didn't look after it, I grew it too long at times, and I hid behind it.
A beard cannot be your shield. A beard is a sign of your confidence in yourself.

If a beard suits you, then keep it. Make your beard a part of what you show the world.

If your beard doesn't suit you, then admit it. This is not Ancient Gaul, not having a beard is no shame. In fact, not having a beard makes you braver than the guy who keeps a bad beard. It means you tried it and were strong enough to admit it didn't suit you.

Many fine young men that I know have decided that a beard is not for them. That makes me proud.

So, just because I look fantastic owning a beard, that doesn't mean you do. Be honest with yourself.

And don't even start me on the "Top-knots", or "Man Buns" thing....

Uncomfortable Conversations

We all have them, at one point or another. These are the conversations we would rather not have to have, but are necessary. Personally, I hate them, and like most people, work so hard at avoiding them that it would often be easier to just get it over and done.
Uncomfortable conversations come in many guises. They occur at different times in our lives, for different reasons, and are almost always about the things we think about least... because those things make us uncomfortable. Occasionally, they are about the things we think about constantly, (like that nasty hoarding habit which is growing slowly.... you know who you are!), but mostly it is the things that we push away because it is just too hard to deal with, like Gay rights, or refugees, or why you don't recycle as much as you could, despite that Greenpeace membership you took, ( insert Sea Shepherd, World Wildlife Fund, PETA, Save the Animals, Green Party, etc, etc.).

Sometimes, though, it's impossible to avoid, and we have to have the conversation we don't want to have, the "little chat" in which we feel cornered, trapped, and forced to face the fact that we have to justify ignoring something on which we should have a position. It could be that someone has deliberately button-holed us and forced the subject to the surface, so there is nowhere to hide, or perhaps it is a social situation in which the conversation gradually circles around, before zeroing in on the one subject you try to avoid, and someone turns to you and says, "So what do YOU think...".

In both situations, you can choose your course of action; you can bluff and prevaricate, which invariably makes you look weak, and leaves you open to attack. You can retreat and pretend ignorance, which will immediately destroy your credibility with your audience. Or you can plunge ahead, admit your uncertainties, your prejudices, fears and preconceptions, which will immediately alienate at least some of your audience, especially if they are part of the group under discussion.

Which is why we don't want uncomfortable conversations in the first place.

But how about this...

If we were to confront our fears, our prejudices and preconceptions, if we were to learn as much as we can, from unbiased sources, about all the things we don't like to talk about, and sift the information through our minds as we go about our daily life, then perhaps the "uncomfortable" part of the conversation may not be there. The embarrassment of our opinion might disappear, because we are informed, and can justify our opposition, or because we have learned, and can admit that once we didn't agree, but now we do. We may also learn to appreciate the position of those we do not agree with, and no longer fear them as aggressors and as being argumentative.

Which leaves one problem.

Sooner or later, we are going to have to admit that uncomfortable conversations start with us. We are the ones that set the parameters for these conversations, and it is US that actually make the conversations "uncomfortable" because of our own attitudes. In fact, if we are honest, each of us has, as individuals, many conversations inside ourselves which we do not want to have, because of the truths about ourselves which we need to face, but do not want to.

This is where the conversations need to start.
The most difficult conversations are those we need to have with ourselves.